(Fr)agile scrum method?

24

October

2017

No ratings yet.

Epics, sprint backlog, scrum master, sprint task, velocity, product owner”

If you recognize the above words, it’s highly likely you’ve worked with Scrum. If we may believe the software engineers, agile methods like Scrum would be the best solution to all problems that exist in the world of software engineering.

What is special about scrum is that it is a developing method where products can be built in fixed-length iterations called sprints. Scrum is designed to control processes that requires a high level of flexibility, to meet the changing business needs.

Not everybody experiences scrum the same way and actually a lot people who worked with scrum don’t feel scrum is that wonderful as it seems and want to spread their opinion. They state that:
⁃ There is to little attention for soft skills of scrum (Vandepoel, 2017), which means the social interactions and relationships team members have with each other. Due to fact that the daily stand-ups are focused on progress and results, the social interactions are gone. Especially IT-nerds are not good in showing emotions and feeling emotions from others, which will not improve with scrum.
⁃ Statistics make no sense: progress is measured in terms of velocity, but according to research (Savalle, 2017) employees don’t understand it well and therefore it is not be used in the good way. Which is why less progress can be made.
⁃ Hard to start the scrum-life: scrum contains a lot of new words, as can be seen above, therefore the start of scrum can be tough and can cause conservative behavior amongst employees.
⁃ When implementation is not done well, double work will be done a lot, which is of course the opposite of where scrum is developed for.

Is scrum really a fragile agile method? No, to me it isn’t. Currently, I am working on the BI-department of a bigger company that uses scrum as well and in my opinion, scrum delivers a lot but bad experiences. Nevertheless, I agree that it takes a while before a team that recently start scrum will gain benefit from it.

What are your experiences with scrum?

https://www.mt.nl/management/aandacht-zachte-kant-scrum/535015
https://www.scrum.org/resources/what-is-scrum

Please rate this

(Fr)agile scrum method?

24

October

2017

No ratings yet.

Epics, sprint backlog, scrum master, sprint task, velocity, product owner”

If you recognize the above words, it’s highly likely you’ve worked with Scrum. If we may believe the software engineers, agile methods like Scrum would be the best solution to all problems that exist in the world of software engineering.

What is special about scrum is that it is a developing method where products can be built in fixed-length iterations called sprints. Scrum is designed to control processes that requires a high level of flexibility, to meet the changing business needs.

Not everybody experiences scrum the same way and actually a lot people who worked with scrum don’t feel scrum is that wonderful as it seems and want to spread their opinion. They state that:
⁃ There is to little attention for soft skills of scrum (Vandepoel, 2017), which means the social interactions and relationships team members have with each other. Due to fact that the daily stand-ups are focused on progress and results, the social interactions are gone. Especially IT-nerds are not good in showing emotions and feeling emotions from others, which will not improve with scrum.
⁃ Statistics make no sense: progress is measured in terms of velocity, but according to research (Savalle, 2017) employees don’t understand it well and therefore it is not be used in the good way. Which is why less progress can be made.
⁃ Hard to start the scrum-life: scrum contains a lot of new words, as can be seen above, therefore the start of scrum can be tough and can cause conservative behavior amongst employees.
⁃ When implementation is not done well, double work will be done a lot, which is of course the opposite of where scrum is developed for.

Is scrum really a fragile agile method? No, to me it isn’t. Currently, I am working on the BI-department of a bigger company that uses scrum as well and in my opinion, scrum delivers a lot but bad experiences. Nevertheless, I agree that it takes a while before a team that recently start scrum will gain benefit from it.

What are your experiences with scrum?

https://www.mt.nl/management/aandacht-zachte-kant-scrum/535015
https://www.scrum.org/resources/what-is-scrum

Please rate this

(Fr)agile scrum method?

24

October

2017

No ratings yet.

Epics, sprint backlog, scrum master, sprint task, velocity, product owner”

If you recognize the above words, it’s highly likely you’ve worked with Scrum. If we may believe the software engineers, agile methods like Scrum would be the best solution to all problems that exist in the world of software engineering.

What is special about scrum is that it is a developing method where products can be built in fixed-length iterations called sprints. Scrum is designed to control processes that requires a high level of flexibility, to meet the changing business needs.

Not everybody experiences scrum the same way and actually a lot people who worked with scrum don’t feel scrum is that wonderful as it seems and want to spread their opinion. They state that:
⁃ There is to little attention for soft skills of scrum (Vandepoel, 2017), which means the social interactions and relationships team members have with each other. Due to fact that the daily stand-ups are focused on progress and results, the social interactions are gone. Especially IT-nerds are not good in showing emotions and feeling emotions from others, which will not improve with scrum.
⁃ Statistics make no sense: progress is measured in terms of velocity, but according to research (Savalle, 2017) employees don’t understand it well and therefore it is not be used in the good way. Which is why less progress can be made.
⁃ Hard to start the scrum-life: scrum contains a lot of new words, as can be seen above, therefore the start of scrum can be tough and can cause conservative behavior amongst employees.
⁃ When implementation is not done well, double work will be done a lot, which is of course the opposite of where scrum is developed for.

Is scrum really a fragile agile method? No, to me it isn’t. Currently, I am working on the BI-department of a bigger company that uses scrum as well and in my opinion, scrum delivers a lot but bad experiences. Nevertheless, I agree that it takes a while before a team that recently start scrum will gain benefit from it.

What are your experiences with scrum?

https://www.mt.nl/management/aandacht-zachte-kant-scrum/535015
https://www.scrum.org/resources/what-is-scrum

Please rate this

Lower attention span than a goldfish

21

October

2017

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Research from Canada stated that our average timespan to pay attention is now shorter than the attention span from a goldfish.

The part that you’ve read was exactly eight seconds. So please stare out the window for a few seconds before continuing….

The attention timespan is defined as “the amount of concentrated time on a task without becoming distracted.” Research of Microsoft did a survey to this attention span among 2000 Canadians with minimum age of 18 and monitored the brain activity from 100 participants, using EEGs (electroencephalograms). These EEGS were used to measure the level of attention and brain activity.
The result of the research is that the average attention span declined from twelve to eight seconds, which is really terrifying if you would ask me. Both gender-groups showed decline, but the research stated that the attention span of men is better than from woman. The decline itself is due to IT and all the small devices that came with it. The “desire to be constantly connected” is the real reason why our attention span has declined, but luckily, this desire has also brought us something good: our ability to multitask has improved exceptionally.

On the one hand, I keep wondering: what are we doing to ourselves? Why did we let this come so fare? But on the other hand I truly believe this doesn’t have to become the standard and I am convinced we can do something about it. So let’s train our brain during the coming years and improve our attention span by following advice from research.
In 2012, a research published in the journal of Nutrition that enough hydration would help to keep concentration, even when you are not thirsty at all. Additionally, exercise the body would increase our attention span, which means that by exercising your body, you are exercising your brain as well, it is a win-win! And last but not least, a very predictable advice is given: try to avoid electronic devices. Lock your telephone for a set time so it will be impossible to take a look at your device within that given time. Or just learn how to control the desire to grab your phone every now and then and reward yourself in case you just stare out of the window instead of paying attention to your online world.

I hope you made it trough the whole article, it was a tough exercise, I know.

http://www.medicaldaily.com/human-attention-span-shortens-8-seconds-due-digital-technology-3-ways-stay-focused-333474
Cary Stothart, Ainsley Mitchum, Courtney Yehnert. The Attentional Cost of Receiving a Cell Phone Notification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 2015.

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